To call Sarah Strohmeyer's The Cinderella Pact Chick Lit is to miss the point. Yes, it's written in the breezy style ubiquitous in Chick Lit. Yes, there's a shoe on the cover ... and glitter. But don't fall for the glitz. While Cinderella Pact is as amusing as the best Chick Lit, with the predictable, satisfying ending expected of the genre, the sugar coating hides a very serious message about the bias against large-sized women in our society. Strohmeyer starts with a clever premise: Nola is a overweight, overlooked editor at a sleazy tabloid where the reigning queen is a thin, hip, and British columnist named Belinda Apple that nobody on staff has ever seen. Did I mention Belinda is thin? Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. The queen-sized editor IS the queen bee, incognito. Nola created her alter ego after she was refused a regular column because of her weight. Belinda quickly became a sensation, quoted by millions of women looking for pizzazz in their lives. Unfortunately Nola's Size 6 lie comes back to bite her in her Lane Bryant blue jeans. When "Belinda" writes a breezy (and erroneous) column about how easy it is to lose weight, Nola's friends pounce like the vultures best friends should be -- on Nola. They make a pact to get skinny, based on Belinda's easy-as-pie (Key Lime with extra whipped cream, please) weight loss program. The one that doesn't exist. Nola Devlin is an adorable character, one I wanted to win everything: the guy, the gold ring, the Size 6 wardrobe, the 100K salary. Heck, when I grow up, I want to *be* Nola Devlin. Strohmeyer's comedy is spot-on. And the story itself is a scream, especially when Nola's sister gets engaged and invites Nola to be a bridesmaid -- and Belinda to be her maid of honor. As an overweight woman myself, Nola's situation was both a little hard to face and refreshingly familiar. But part of the brilliance in this series (followed by sequel The Sleeping Beauty Proposal, with more under contract) is that Strohmeyer explores very real issues. She makes biting statements against specific elements of sexism, but with enough sugar that you might not notice the medicine. Cinderella Pact was the funniest sermon I've ever read, and I'll stand in line to buy anything Strohmeyer publishes for a long time.